Many consumers, disenchanted with rising food prices and declining food quality, have begun supplementing their grocery store purchases with garden grown produce.
Since crops characteristically have a single annual harvesting period, various methods have been devised to preserve the food products to enable continuous consumption throughout the year.
Some chemicals are good preservatives, but the use of chemicals has many undesirable effects. Also, chemicals are not readily available to individual consumers for preserving garden grown produce. "Canning" is a process commonly employed for preserving tomatoes whereby the produce is heated for a prolonged period of time to ensure the destruction of harmful bacteria. One of the drawbacks to canning is that many of the nutrients and much of the taste of the produce is cooked out in the heating step. Also, a totally hermetic environment must be maintained in the canning jars or else harmful bacteria will enter and destroy the food.
"Freezing" is a much more simple method of preserving food. Since extreme heat is not used, the taste and the nutrients of the food are preserved. Produce can be frozen without any cooking or heating, or the produce can be frozen with moderate cooking or heating.
Freezing is practiced domestically and only requires freezer bags to be filled with food, and "twists" used to secure the opening of the bag after filling.
One problem exists in the art of freezing to which no solution has been proffered. When the freezer bags are sealed with the "twists," air trapped within the bag has a tendency to make the frozen food taste stale. Also, humidity in the air tends to crystalize and form ice in the bag after freezing. The ice, when thawed with the food, adds a stale taste to the food.
People who practice the art of domestic freezing have in the past relied on "squeezing" the air out of the bag after filling with food. "Squeezing" is imprecise and cumbersome. No devices are known or commercially available to the practioner to remove unwanted air prior to sealing the freezer bag.